The development of a business directory database is one of the key expectations of economic developers in a municipality or other communities. It provides a vehicle by which individuals and businesses from anywhere can obtain useful and relevant information pertaining to businesses in a municipality and pertaining to the municipality itself. In order for a municipality to progress and grow, it is very important to develop a sophisticated business directory database in order to promote regional development by attracting new businesses into the region, and also to help promote and develop existing local businesses in the region, so that local business prospers and remains in the region.
Historically, municipalities tend to develop business directory databases from information received from the Chamber of Commerce or Tourism Board. Such information is typically the best economic and related demographic data relevant to a region; however, it is not complete and often does not have information that is useful and necessary for businesses wishing to move into a region, such as SIC codes, annual revenues, and so on. Further, this data accumulation and management tends to be done by in-house staff or contracted to third parties to do community surveying and to develop a custom software solution to house this data. Accordingly, this method of gathering and maintaining information is very expensive and most municipalities cannot afford to assemble and maintain a useful current business directory database, due to the amount of work and expense. Indeed, many municipalities virtually ignore the development of a business directory database since they cannot afford to develop and maintain a high quality current business directory database.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a database management system.